July/August 2014

Content

What Education Crisis?

Consider this: What if our fear that U.S. schools are falling behind is exaggerated? Just how bad are they?

Memory Loss

A prominent neurologist and Alzheimer's expert says we may have an exaggerated fear of the disease.

Media Powerhouse

Unhappy as a lawyer, Debra Lee ’76 took a chance with Black Entertainment Television and helped turn it into a $3 billion company.

The Perfect Professor

Over more that 60 years at Brown, economics professor George Borts mentored generations of students.

Mentor, Teacher & Physicist

A farewell to Professor of Physics Gerald Stanford Guralnik, who died suddenly April 26 at the age of 77.

Well Timed

What are the odds of this three generation meeting?

Everything Changed My Senior Year

There is something about the number 50 that triggers an emotional response in most people. Is it the onset of “middle age?”

Old Hat

Gerrit Sanford ’49 figures he’s worn his top hat in the Commencement procession 65 times—every year since his graduation.

Senior Selfies

When the clock strikes midnight at Campus Dance, it's time for...

Corrections

More Kelly

A Lucky Man

1972 Spring Weekend

Baseball + Time

Climate of Omission

A Mule In The Coal Mine

Student Initiative

A New Curriculum

Game Day

Rugby Replay

Replay: Women's Rugby

Tips for Coaching Your Kids

K.C. Wilder’s top five tips for parents guiding their children through the world of organized sports.

Balanced Sports

As a mother and former pro cyclist, K.C. Wilder ’89 says that being an athlete should never mean being selfish.

You're Not From Here

After years spent in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Lebanon, a family tries to adjust to life in southern California.

Ghost Story

Artists conjure the spirits of John Whipple Potter Jenks's long-lost museum of natural history and anthropology.

Obituaries

Obituaries from the July/August 2014 issue.

Fresh Ink

New books from alumni, including a look at how culture influences mental illness and photographs of Western landscapes.

Life in Limbo

Maxim Shrayer ’89 writes about what it meant to be a refusenik family in the USSR and the decision to come to America.

Virtual and Real

In her new play, The Nether, Jennifer Haley ’05 MFA exposes the morally ambiguous corners of cyberspace.

Not a Life Sentence

An interview with author Raun K. Kaufman ’95 on how he overcame autism despite dire predictions about his future.

The Way Out

At 18 months, Raun Kaufman ’95 was severly autistic. Twenty years later he graduated from Brown. How could this be?

End of the World

The Brunist Day of Wrath may be the novel that Robert Coover fans have been waiting for. So says our reviewer.

On Screen

Leah Meyerhoff ’01 was on campus to answer questions after a screening of her film I Believe in Unicorns.

The Oracle

Poet Afaa Michael Weaver ’87 AM has been called a Walt Whitman for the twenty-first century.

The Memories We're Made Of

Lois Lowry ’58 has written more than forty books, including the classic The Giver, which becomes a major movie this summer. In all of them she has been creating young characters who, despite sometimes excruciating obstacles and painful loneliness, learn that the deepest life comes from loving others.

From the President

During Brown's 250th year, a reflection on the fifty years of Brown's extraordinary partership with Tougaloo College.

Cell Phones On

The Baccalaureate address by Nailine Nadkarni ’76 included a request for Commencement's first-ever flash tweet.

Funny Girl

At a Commencement forum, Tracee Ellis Ross ’82 talked about the role models she learned from.

Finding a Voice

One of this year's honorary degree recipients, Jeffrey Eugenides ’82, gives aspiring writers some advice.

Honored Alums

To acknowledge the University’s 250 years, all of this year’s honorary degree recipients were Brown graduates.

Color Code

Images from the medical and graduate shool Commencement ceremonies before the big event on the College Green.

Tradition, Selfies, and Tweets

Over three jam-packed days, parents, friends, and alumni celebrate the accomplishments of 2,440 students.

Faces from the class of 1989

The 25th reunion class returns to campus to relish the road traveled and nourish friendships that may have been neglected along the way.

Night Moves

At Campus Dance the fashions range widely and alumni, parents, and students let loose until tradition and sentiment ring out at the senior sing.

Solving Puzzles

As a kid growing up in Hell's Kitchen, Erika López García ’14 never imagined she'd one day solve a planetary mystery.

It’s Ok to Like Melody Again

Ben Kutner ’14 and Zach Rufa ’14 combined music and international affairs in an unlikely opera staged at Brown.

Dante's Poetic Numbers

When Nicole Jones ’14 studies Dante's The Divine Comedy, she checks out the great poet's math.

Discoveries of All Kinds

Po Bhattacharyya ’14 has worked as a park ranger in south Africa, studied jellyfish in France, and hopes to start a school in India.

The Techno Evangelist

Tyler Benster ’14 is convinced that this method of creating 3D objects with a computer printer is going to rock our world.

50th Reunion: Class of 1964

If the 50th anniversary of graduation is a landmark event, the class of 1964 showed up in numbers.

Obituaries

Obituaries from the May/June 2014 issue.

What Do You Think?

How They Did It

Letter to the editor about early 1900s recording technology